Doctor Who: Terror of The Master

 

Terror of The Master by Trevor Baxendale and Read By John Culshaw

Terror of The Master is a weird one. A classical Third Doctor story that really draws you in at the same time also feeling to me like it had serious pacing issues and would have worked much better on the page. It's certainly very odd, that's for sure. For the most part, I'd say the pacing in Terror of The Master is almost good - all the scenes are important, it doesn't feel like it's plodding for time, but the very fact that it's narrated means that no matter how distinguishable the characters are from eachother by voice, every line ends with "he said, she said," and whatnot. Perhaps I am spoiled by the Early Adventures just not doing that, and this is an audiobook and not a hybrid like those, but Culshaw is just so good, you really geniunely do forget (unless it's Daisy, he really can't pretend to be a woman well) that it's not an early adventure audio, and I really think it would have been improved if they embraced that aspect. But I'm just not used to the narration, and it feels overbearing in terms of time - especially when most of the first hour of Terror is merely the scene-setting. 

In many ways, I love what Terror of the Master is doing. A classical Third Doctor story to cap off the limited edition of Masterful - but in others, I do think it would have done well with an extra polish to put it on par with the other narrated Big Finish productions. The good bits of Terror are exceedingly good - the Doctor seeing a scientist on television as the Master for a split second and realizing the scientist is saying things he shouldn't know in his time is an exceedingly good hook. The climate change stuff feels like it probably would have been done in the 70s and is only more pertinent now. Once again, Culshaw is brilliant, and the Scabbous is a pretty good villain to balance off the Master at least somewhat. But still - that first hour! The Third Doctor serials rarely had so much scene-setting, and you can only hang about in the UNIT lab talking about how the Doctor will be going soon for so long without the audience thinking that "oh golly I want to go too, when do the good bits start?" 

It's also good to keep in mind that I do have a bias against narration since I read much faster than I listen, and at times I felt that I rather would have had Terror in page form, since a lot of the criticisms of he said she said are almost ignored when reading the written word. Terror really does feel like it's own era, which is a triumph in itself with only one actor, but for an anniversary set such as this, I can't help but feel they could have done more. Just one other actor for Daisy and the production would have been markedly improved, making it slightly more like one of the Early Adventure's full cast imitations. Yet at the same time, I can't really make that criticism, as it's just one of my silly old preferences. I rather imagine that if someone really gets into narration Terror might be one of their favorites. It just all in all did not feel like a story that was truly for me simply because I prefer the companion chronicle format much more-  although I probably will end up picking up Scourge Of The Cybermen when that comes out too, because frick it Culshaw really is bloody exceptional, what a find, he elevates the whole thing by like 2 points just by himself. It's just really long, and I'm a fickle, fickle, man: 7/10